Homes in Belmar found themselves under water after Hurricane Sandy wreaked havoc on the Jersey Shore. A new poll shows public satisfaction with the state's Sandy recovery effort at a new low.
(Andrew Mills/The Star-Ledger)

TRENTON — For the first time since Hurricane Sandy barreled across New Jersey in October 2012, leaving in its wake billions of dollars in damage and thousands of residents homeless, public satisfaction with the state’s recovery effort has dropped below 50 percent, according to a poll made public today.

The results of the latest Monmouth University/Asbury Park Press Poll represent a rebuke for Gov. Chris Christie — already staggered by the scandal over the September closing of access lanes to the George Washington Bridge — whose popularity soared as he became the face of the recovery.

Now the poll is finding that an increasing number of residents are dissatisfied with how the rebuilding has gone a year and a half after the storm struck. They say the pace of relief has been far too slow.

"New Jerseyans remained very optimistic for the first year after Sandy hit, but their approval of the state’s recovery efforts have plunged by nearly 30 points over the past six months," Patrick Murray, director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, said in a news release.

Murray said that "recent news about Sandy-funded projects being built far from impacted areas and the firing of state contractors responsible for processing aid applications certainly haven’t helped perceptions."

The Star-Ledger reported in January that Christie personally pushed for millions of dollars in aid for a housing project for the elderly in Belleville, a town that did not suffer much damage from the storm, but whose Democratic mayor endorsed the governor’s re-election.

That same month, the Christie administration severed its contract with Hammerman & Gainer Inc., a company that was handling close to $1 billion in federal recovery funds. Homeowners had been complaining for months about the firm’s inept management.

The poll released yesterday, which surveyed 803 New Jersey adults from March 30 to April 1, found that 48 percent said they were either very satisfied or somewhat satisfied with the effort, while 43 percent said they were dissatisfied. It was the first time public satisfaction has fallen below 50 percent. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

Satisfaction with the state’s recovery and rebuilding effort peaked at 76 percent last September, months after ads featuring Christie and his family boasting that the state was "stronger than the storm" appeared frequently on television.

But that level of satisfaction declined to 66 percent in December and 55 percent in February before reaching its current low.

The poll also found that residents in the areas hardest hit by the strom were those least happy with the effort, with 41 percent satisfied and 54 percent dissatisfied — compared with 49 percent satisfied and 41 percent dissatisfied in the rest of the state.

In previous Monmouth polls, there wasn’t as great a regional difference.

An overwhelming majority of respondents, 73 percent, said the pace of getting relief to residents who suffered most from the storm had been too slow. But they were more divided over whether the state had done a good job helping residents repair their homes under the circumstances; 43 percent said the state had done a good job and 47 percent said it had done poorly.

While Christie has blamed federal regulations for the slow pace of recovery — "FEMA is the new ‘F’ word," he told a town hall meeting in Middletown in February — 46 percent of New Jerseyans nonetheless blamed the state’s mismanagement of the programs for the delays, while 36 percent cited the federal government.

In addition, 51 percent of the adults polled said they were at least somewhat confident that storm relief funds were being spent wisely, while 45 percent said they were not confident. That’s down significantly from February, when 57 percent said they were confident that the money was being spent wisely.